Transcriptome Profiling of PRRSV Infected Porcine Alveolar Macrophages By Single Cell Sequencing

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRSV) is a devastating pathogen for the pig industry worldwide. PRRSV mainly infects porcine alveolar macrophage (PAM). In the present study, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) was employed to characterize the host transcriptome responses of PAMs infected with a virulent PRRSV strain in vivo and ex vivo. Increase ofpro-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic genes was correlated with the increase of infection (expression of the virus ORF7 transcript). For the in vivo study, weaned pigs were infected with 10^6 TCID50 ofthe PRRSV strain expressing green fluorescent protein (FL12-GPF) and PAMs were collected at 4- and 7- days post infection for scRNA-seq. For the ex vivo study, PAMs collected from healthy pigs were infected with 1 MOI of the PRRSV FL12-GFP and samples were collected at 0-, 6- and 12- hours post-infection for scRNA-seq.